


Волчица

by wearethenorth



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, Multi, probably just fucked up all of mcu with this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethenorth/pseuds/wearethenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She is no Black Widow," the man on her left scoffs. "What are they calling her?"</p>
<p>"волчица," the other says, sharply tugging on an errant curl that had escaped her braid and quickening his pace. "She-Wolf. They say she is too wild to break. Even for the Red Room."</p>
<p>When a strange series of murders starts popping up all over the Eastern seaboard, and an old friend of Natasha's turns up out of the blue, the Avengers find that these strange happenings are all connected to one person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for my shitty google translate Russian.
> 
> The title for the story is pronounced volchitsa and it means she-wolf in Russian.
> 
> This was heavily influenced by Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, Arya Stark's storyline in A Song Of Ice And Fire, and Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov's story.

"This is getting us nowhere," Bruce leans back on the couch, shielding his eyes from the vivid holograms reflecting on the bay windows. "We're not detectives, Tony." Stark groans and slams his drink onto the counter, the ice cubes rattling against the glass, cold amber liquid sloshing over his fingers. "There's something not quite right going on here, Bruce." "I agree with you," the scientist sighs and removes his glasses, wiping them against the hem of his shirt. It's a seemingly innocent gesture, but Natasha knows it's because the images in the screen disturb him. She doesn't blink an eye at the blood spattered walls and bodies crumpled on the floor, has seen too much to shy from them now, and sometimes she forgets that other people aren't so immune.

"But we can't invest our time in seeming serial murders. Reed and I are working on something big and--"

"Reed? As in Reed Richards? Since when are you on a first-name basis with _Reed Richards_?"

"I can have other scientist friends too, you know," Bruce replies, a smile lingering on the corner of his mouth. He's glad for the distraction, and Tony seems to sense it.

"No, you can't!"

Steve, however, is more focused on the task before them.

"Now's not the time to play the scorned lover, Tony," he says firmly. There's a glint in his eye, and she can tell he's assuming the worst. "Has... Has anyone seen Bucky?"

And there it was.

"It's not him, Steve," Natasha says, speaking for the first time since she entered the room to Tony pulling up news reels and online articles on the murder cases all along the East Coast.

It's gone quiet.

Even Tony and Bruce have stopped their bickering, suddenly uncomfortable with the tense atmosphere of the room.

"I know, I just..." Steve sighs and flops down on the couch, brushing back his blonde hair from his forehead. "He leaves the tower a lot. Never even tells me he's going. Just up and leaves like it's nobody's business."

"It's not."

"It is," Steve insists. "He's my best friend, and I'm ecstatic we got him back, but at what cost? He doesn't have all his memories. He's unstable and angry, and I have no idea what he's doing when he goes out, and I'm worried!"

"You're not his keeper," Natasha says. "He's not nearly as helpless and shattered as you think he is."

"That doesn't mean he doesn't need help," Steve insists. "I owe him that and more."

That's when the elevator doors ding open, and hell breaks loose.

"That would be Bucky," Tony says, but when Natasha gets to her feet she stutters to a stop at the sight inside.

The woman's silver eyes are unfocused and she's leaning heavily on the side of the elevator. There are cuts decorating her arms, and bullet holes leaking blood onto the white and black tiles. What skin can be seen through her ripped and dirtied clothing is mottled with bruises and dry blood.

Natasha swallows when the woman gives a tired smile.

"сестра."

And then her eyes cross and she's toppling forward into the redhead's arms, leaving bloodstains on her leather jacket and crisp white blouse.

"What the _fuck_?"

* * *

Marya snuffs out the cigarette when it begins to burn against her fingers. The last breath of air that leaves her lungs is a puff of white smoke, and she coughs when she inhales the clean and crisp air just outside of Leningrad.

It's cold here, but she remembered a time when it was much colder, so she grits her teeth and trudges through the knee-deep snow.

Her clothing was too rich for the outskirts of the city. The people there look up from their daily toil and cast her suspicious and envious glances, but don't near her.

She must be important, they decide. With her strong jaw and pointed chin, she looks like a lord's daughter.

Marya would laugh aloud--a rich sound, full and sweet, but rarely ever heard—if she could hear their thoughts.

She was no one's daughter.

Marya barely looks over when two men sidle up beside her; her escort, she supposes.

Marya says nothing. Has no need of words. She has found in her short years that men will speak as they please, and all she has to do is listen to gain the information she needs.

Neither of them says a word for a moment, but the man at her right glances down at her lips.

"She is no Black Widow," the man on her left scoffs. "What are they calling her?"

"волчица," the other says, sharply tugging on an errant curl that had escaped her braid and quickening his pace. "She-Wolf. They say she is too wild to break. Even for the Red Room."

"No one is too wild for the Red Room."

_I am_ , she wants to say, but bites her tongue. _Quiet as a shadow_ , she reminds herself.

"What was her name before?"

"Marya. Marya Morevna."

The man on her left grins, his gold tooth glinting in the early morning light.

"The Devil's own bride."

The rest of the walk to St. Isaac's Cathedral was spent in silence, save for the increasingly labored breathing of the two men beside her. The walk had been long, but Marya had never been quick to tire, even before the serum.

"Are we here to pray?" She asks innocently, though there's a mocking lilt in her voice. The man who had been staring at her like meat pulls her back and slaps her across the face. Marya turns and spits, but only white spittle flies from her mouth. He had not drawn blood, and she let the corner of her lips quirk.

The man made to hit her again, but his companion grabs his wrist and draws him away.

"достаточно," he says. "Enough. солдат will remind her of her place soon enough."

The man wrenches himself away, but makes no move towards her as they enter the cathedral.

* * *

"Who is she?"

Natasha ignores Steve in favor of wringing out the wet rag in the bowl Bruce had brought earlier. The water had turned pink with the woman's blood, but Natasha was reluctant to leave the woman's side to change it. She ran the rag around the woman's wounds with her brows furrowed in concentration.

"Er, should I get, like, a doctor or something?"

"No," the sharpness in her tone doesn't startle Tony nearly as much as it's small tremor, so he sets about cleaning the marble island where the unconscious woman is situated.

The woman stirs, her fingers fluttering in Natasha's direction. The assassin rushes to the other side of the island and grabs the woman's hand, placing a reverential kiss on her fingertips.

Her eyes don't open, but she turns her head to the side.

"сестра."

"Остановитесь," she says. "Я здесь, сестра."

A smile tugs at the corner of the woman's lips, and she's unconscious once more.

It's silent for a moment.

"I don't know much Russian," Tony says. "But I got the gist of that. I didn't know you had a sister."

"I don't," Natasha replies, brushing the curls back from the woman's forehead. "We're not really sisters."

"Then who is she?" Steve asks, placing a hand on her shoulder. Natasha tenses, but then relaxes at the familiarity.

"Her name is Marya. Marya Morevna. And right now we have to hide her before James returns."


	2. Chapter 2

They hide her away on one of the empty R&D floors. Tony tells them it had been evacuated a couple months ago because of some freak gamma accident--here he gives Bruce a pointed look, and the scientist smiles back sheepishly--a couple months ago, but assures them that the gamma readings had probably gone down in that time.

Key word: probably.

Steve still seems worried--has always been a mother hen, and that law seemed to apply especially to ex-Soviet assassins--but Natasha assures them that it would hardly affect Marya at all.

At this, Tony and Bruce begin prodding her for more information, but with a scathing look from the Russian spy, they both wisely shut their mouths.

It turned out, the never had to worry.

As soon as they retire into the lounge to calm down and replace the bloody water, something triggers the alarms, and JARVIS is informing them that their guest just tossed a chair right through the bay windows and leapt out of the broken glass--never mind that they were fourteen stories from the lobby.

Natasha curses in Russian and runs to the scene; but—Lord knows how—Marya is already off and out of sight. Civilians are gathering around the base of the tower, staring up at the destruction, which—thankfully—harmed no one.

"She's gone," Natasha says, voice cracking. "I just found her and she's gone."

"Technically, she found you," Tony says, and then grunts when Bruce elbows him hard in the ribs because _really? Now is not the time_.

"We'll find her, Natasha," Bruce says comfortingly. "Tony and I'll pull up street cameras and you and Steve can search down on the ground."

Natasha scoffs and shakes her head.

"We won't find her unless she wants to be found."

"Uh, guys," Steve says, and points to where JARVIS has pulled up a live news feed of Midtown Manhattan on the flat screen. "I don't think she's hiding."

"Jar, zoom in real quick."

Marya stood in the center of Washington Square Park, surrounded by cop cars and civilians holding up cellphones and taking pictures from all sides, two men kneeling at her feet.

Her hood was pulled up, obscuring her features save for the braid down the side of her head, but she was wearing the same ratty clothing she had arrived at Stark Tower with.

"Turn the audio on," Tony says and leans forward in his seat.

The sound is fuzzy, but they can hear her speaking loudly in her slightly accented English, as if she was preaching to the crowd around her.

"...citizens of America," she says, doesn't smile or wave or even show any emotion. "Too long you have been used and abused, led blindly by the secrets and conspiracies your government seeks to hide."

A little on the dramatic side, Tony thinks, but the crowd grew wilder and more restless with her words.

"Think you can get down there as fast as she did?" He snarks.

"Clint just texted," Steve says. "He's already in position." He turns and gives Natasha a look. "Bucky's with him."

The assassin curses once more.

"Not too long ago, you were reminded of its deficiency. SHIELD," she announces. "Hydra. These are two sides of the same coin. A coin that is no longer currency. They promised you freedom, and they promised you peace. Both times, they lied. I offer you just one, and the choice lies before you."

She points to the two men at her feet.

"Professor Rodchenko was a scientist for the KGB before defecting to SHIELD. Or rather, Hydra."

She sneered and struck the man when he began to beg for his life.

"And the other, Jack Rollins. A field agent for SHIELD's STRIKE team. One of the few not dead. _Yet_."

"Holy shit," Tony says, finally putting the pieces together. "This isn't a demonstration. It's a public execution."

Natasha whips out her phone and begins typing furiously as the crowd roars on the TV screen.

" _Tasha_?" Clint's voice answers. " _You guys watching this_?"

"Yeah," she says. "Do what you have to do, but I don't want any harm coming to her, do you understand?"

The livid crowd surges past the police blockade, and they can hear Clint curse over the comm.

" _She's slipping into the crowd right n-- oh, god. Are you guys getting this_?"

On the TV screen they can see the horde of civilians converge around the trio. Marya disappears into the crowd, but they could hear the two men, two Hydra operatives, screaming as the throng got their hands on them.

Natasha, Steve, Bruce, and Tony all watch gapingly as the scene unfolds.

"Oh my god," Bruce says, turning away from the sight.

"Am I the only one here with normal fucking friends?" Tony mumbles to himself and busies himself by pouring a glass of whiskey and downing it in one gulp, pausing, and then pouring another.

"Clint, status report," Natasha says shakily. "Clint?"

" _Here. That was--holy shit, Natasha. You sure we shouldn't be putting her in cuffs_?"

"Of course not!" Tony throws his hands in the air. "You just fucking adopted an _anarchist_ , Romanoff!"

"She's never been like this before."

"Hmm, well, maybe because you haven't seen her in— _how long_?!"

Natasha frowns.

"Since just before they told me she had died, thirty-five years ago."

" _Holy_ \--" Tony smacks his hand against his forehead. "And you didn't think, in all that time, she might've changed? Even _a little_?"

"Hawkeye, do you have a visual or not?" Natasha says, ignoring Tony's outburst.

" _Not me. But Bucky's down low searching for--hold on, he's got a visual_."

"Don't let him engage, Clint," she says. "Repeat: don't let him engage."

" _Ah, shit, Natasha. Too late. You know, you could've warned me before_."

"Fuck," she curses. "We need to get down there. Stark?"

"Already on it," he says, jogging into the lab.

"Why is this so important, Nat?" Steve asks. "Who is she to him?"

Natasha sighs and steps into the open elevator, closely followed by Steve. Bruce gives them a small wave from the common area and follows Tony into the lab.

"It's not my place to say. You're just gonna have to ask James. If he even remembers."

* * *

"Fuck this," Clint grumbles as he climbs down from the two story building.

The crowd is dispersing with help from the police, but in the middle of the square, he can see blood spatters on the pavement, and the remnants of Rollins and Rodchenko.

“Barnes,” he says into the comm. “Widow says not to engage.”

No answer.

“Barnes?”

* * *

He’s standing over her unconscious body when they converge on the alleyway.

“Holy shit, Barnes, what did you do?” Tony lands and lifts his HUD.

Bucky rolls his eyes and lifts her into his arms. Natasha’s watching him strangely, but he’s not unused to her suspicious looks, so he ignores her.

“She fainted when she tried outrunning me,” he says, climbing into the quinjet and setting the woman on one of the plush seats. “She’s got four bullet holes. No exit wounds, but the shrapnel seems to have been taken out sometime before her little exhibition. You guys got any idea who she is?”

He’s greeted with silence, and when he looks up, everyone is staring at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.” It’s Natasha who speaks. “I knew her. Before. Let’s just get back to the Tower so I can see to it that she’s fine.”

Bucky shrugs. “You sure know how to pick your friends.”

“Told you,” Tony snickers.

* * *

 

When Marya wakes, her wounds have been cleaned and dressed, and her legs have been strapped to the chair she’s currently sitting on.

She looks up, and meets the combined glares of four people. She fidgets and presses a hand against her abdomen, but Natasha quietly advises her against it in Russian.

"You killed two men today," Natasha says.

"I killed no one," Marya replies tiredly, then shrugs. "I left that decision to the American people. I cannot help it if this country is full of savages. No offense, полководец. And why the sudden disappointment, Natashenka? Is this so different from what you and your colorful friends do every day? Or has SHIELD been keeping a tighter leash on its lackey than the Red Room ever did?"

“Why are you here, Marya? Why did you show up to the tower? Why are you killing these people?”

Marya’s face remains emotionless.

“You found my trail.”

“You weren’t exactly hiding it,” Tony snorts.

“For this very purpose,” the woman replies nonchalantly. “Chaos. My specialty, if you recall.”

“But _why_?” Natasha narrows her eyes. “Why come back _now_ , after all this time?”

Marya barely blinks. “So many questions. Yet, the answer is simple, Natashenka. Look at what we were. Look at what we’ve become. Much has changed, no? And yet, not. Hydra, SHIELD, Department X. They are all the same. We tell ourselves that this time it is different. This time we are fighting for ourselves, rather than our superiors.”

“What we do, we do for the good of the world,” Steve says, clenching his jaw.

“Do you know what this world is, полководец? It is the memories Natalia and I used to share to each other during the cold winter nights. Stories we would tell each other over and over… until we would forget that they were _lies_.”

Marya’s stony eyes roam over everyone in the room, assessing.

“And what do we have left once we abandon these lies?” She asks. “Despair. Anger. _Chaos._ Of course, this is frowned upon in your Western, _civilized_ world. To you, chaos is a pit. But to me, chaos is a _ladder_. I have been reborn, полководец. This new world has given me a chance to climb the ladder. And the climb is all there is.”

“Holy shit,” Tony says. “Lady, you are fucking _psycho_.”

“Hate to say it about one of Tasha’s old friends,” Clint shrugs. “But Stark’s got a point.”

Natasha turns to try once more. “What about the twins, Masha? What about Pyotr and Anya?”

Almost as if she flicked a switch, Marya’s neutral expression darkens.

“What,” she says slowly, as if giving Natasha time to choose her next words carefully, “do you know of them?”

Natasha, sensing Marya’s sudden hostility, puts her hands before her in a placating gesture. “No more than you,” she eases. “Only that they were lost when you were.”

The other Russian quickly regains her composure and lifts her chin, prompting Natasha to continue.

“But you’re here, which means they must be alive, as well.” Natasha sees a chink in Marya’s armor, and seizes her chance. “What happened to them, Masha? Where are the twins?”

Marya scowls, her silver eyes flashing in the fluorescent lighting. “They were strong,” she says, jaw clenching.

“And?”

She looks up at Natasha, and Tony can see silent communication in their gaze. “They were taken from me.”

“These… twins,” Steve says, breaking the silence unsteadily. “Are they your siblings?”

“My children.”

“Geez,” Tony mutters and tugs at his collar. “They’re not dead, are they?”

Steve winces and mentally chastises Stark for his tactlessness, but Marya hardly notices. She stares down at the table with a frown.

“Worse.”

“Worse than dead?”

“Stark,” Steve warns.

“There are many things worse than death,” Marya spits. “Death is pure. Finite. What was done to Anya... To Pyotr…”She clutches the edge of the metal table, and it bends beneath the force of her grip. “I will repay their suffering ten times over.”

“Would they, quite possibly, be the reason you’re going on a murderous rampage?”

“Tony, that’s enough.”

“Tell me, Stark,” Marya says, eerily calm. “What did you do when you escaped your imprisonment?”

“Became a superhero.”

“Is that what you call your exhibition in Afghanistan? That was your reckoning, was it not?”

“That’s different,” Tony clenches his jaw. “I did it to save people.”

Marya sits back in her chair, satisfied. “As did I."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "полководец" = captain; she's using it to mock Steve
> 
> Anyone pick up the Game of Thrones reference?
> 
> Hint: Marya's a big fan when she has time off from murdering people


	3. Chapter 3

When Marya’s safely locked away in a spare—windowless—room, Tony whirls on Natasha.

“You didn’t tell us she had _kids_!” Tony slaps a hand to his forehead for what seems like the twelfth time that day. “Now I feel bad for calling her crazy! I mean, she still is, but she’s a mother too, you know?”

“Wow,” Steve says, then frowns. “But I thought the Black Widow serum made you, er… sterile.”

Natasha plops down on the couch and gives a heavy sigh.

“It does. Marya was never officially part of the program. They told her she’d received the injections when she had completed her training, but it didn’t add up. She’d been older than us, so we believed what little we were told about her, but… Even the eldest recruits had never trained with her. She was the oldest Black Widow, but she never really _was_.”

“You lost me,” Tony says, and Steve nods quietly beside him.

“She was called the волчица. _She-Wolf_. There was only one other person in the Red Room who wasn’t a Widow.”

“The Winter Soldier,” Steve sighs when Natasha nods.

“We knew James’d never been part of the program. The serum doesn’t work on men.”

“Wait, _wait_. Give me a second, please. I’m still connecting the dots and hoping they don’t add up to what they’re pointing at. Are you telling me Terminator, who obviously didn't remember her, is Sarah Connors’ _baby daddy?_ ”

Steve balks. “Please tell me that does not mean what I think it means and I’m just not as caught up on twenty-first century lingo as I thought I was.”

“Holy shit, Steve, does that technically make you the godfather?”

“Tony, shut _up_.”

“Wait, do you think Terminator knows about his bombshell baby mama?”

“I think it’s fair to say he does.”

“How do you—oh, _hi_ , Agent Barnes.” Tony smiles in greeting, but it looks more like a grimace. “Right folks, that’s my cue to leave.” He gets to his feet and practically sprints to the elevator, quickening his pace when Bucky cuts him a sharp look.

“ _What_ ,” Bucky says as soon as the elevator doors close behind Stark’s thumbs up. “ _Was he talking about_?”

“Er, Bucky,” Steve says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “You might wanna sit down for this one.”

“Where is Marya?”

“How did you remember?” Steve furrows his brows. Bucky had never regained memories without being triggered and he hadn’t remembered the woman when he had been near her.

“I, uh,” the assassin shrugs and looks down at his feet, embarrassed. “Slipped and fell in the shower. Now, where is she?”

“Woah there, big boy,” Natasha struts forward and places herself between both super soldiers and the door to Marya’s quarters. “Gotta check you for triggers before I let you anywhere near her.”

“Xavier said he got rid of ‘em,” Bucky growls impatiently, hands clenching at his sides.

“He didn’t target ones specified for her. Now, who is  Marya Morevna to you?”

There’s a moment of silence in which Natasha lets her hand stray behind her for her knife, but Bucky’s eyes barely glance at her before staring pointedly at the door across the common room. “It’s complicated,” he says, almost as if it pains him to say it.

“How complicated?”

“Very,” he rolls his eyes and huffs. “She was my partner. My… my _lover_. We were supposed to, uh, breed a new class of super soldiers.”

“What happened?”

He scowls.

“Didn’t take.”

“Uh- _huh_ ,” Natasha looks thoughtful. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Kiev. May of 1988.”

“When Gorbachev decommissioned the Red Room,” she hums. “And the чудеса?”

“Miracles,” Bucky squints. “I don’t—“

“She’s sleeping right now. She’s had a rough day. Don’t wake her up.”

Natasha turns and plops back onto the armchair, ignoring Bucky when he storms past her and cracks open Marya’s door.

“She’s real,” the red-head resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Stop creeping on her.”

For a moment, she thinks he might snap something witty in Russian, but he just stands in the doorway silently, hesitating to go inside. He can see Marya shuffle beneath the covers, not yet asleep but steadily ignoring him in the doorway, whoever she thinks he is.

After a few moments, Bucky gives a low sigh, locks the door and slides down against it. Natasha watches him with a slightly bewildered look as he gets comfortable standing guard.

“If you’re gonna just stand there gawking, Steve,” he says, shutting his eyes and propping his head against the door. “Would you mind going to the kitchen and pouring me a few fingers? It’s been a long night.”

**Author's Note:**

> "сестра."= sister  
> "волчица." = she-wolf  
> "достаточно." = enough  
> "солдат." = soldier  
> "Остановитесь. Я здесь, сестра." = Be still. I am here, sister.
> 
> For those of you who don't know the Russian fairytale, Marya Morevna was the wife of Koschei the Deathless, who was an evil sorcerer and the male counterpart of Baba Yaga. Of course, that's not her real name, since Marya's had her memory wiped, but I thought it quite fitting, and you'll see why later on.


End file.
